Wednesday, March 30, 2011

One very last chance for you to stop the harsh new ESA test

In spite of the fact that the harsh new work capability assessment (WCA), the medical test for employment and support allowance (ESA), became law today, there is still a chance of getting it cancelled.

But it does depend on you urgently attempting to persuade your MP to get off their . . . seat and do something useful before they go off on their Easter holidays next week.

Labour leader Ed Miliband and 7 Labour MPs tabled an early day motion on 23 March ‘praying’ for the new WCA to be annulled. New regulations like these can be overturned by a vote for up to 40 days after they were laid. Because the DWP messed up the laying of the regulations and had to lay them again, the 40 days does not run out until 6 April.

There is a huge irony in the labour party challenging the harsh new WCA when they actually drew it up themselves, but didn’t have time to implement it before being booted out of power. The line labour is taking to justify their u-turn is that the recommendations in the Harrington report should be implemented before any consideration is given to further changes to ESA.

And, whatever the reason for labour’s change of tactic, there is a chance that there could be a debate, a slim possibility there could be a vote and a tiny chance that the government could be defeated. We know that a similar process in the House of Lords ended in feeble surrender last week, but a tiny chance is better than no hope whatsoever.

So, please consider contacting your MP as a matter of urgency and ask them to support EDM 1651 to try to halt this shameful new test which discriminates against many seriously sick and disabled claimants including, for example, blind people with guide dogs. Read more>>

"Plenty of people are still dying of diseases which other people do not believe." (Dr. M.N.C. Dukes).CBT and GET for ME: "There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity."

Robertson Davies

THE NICEGUIDELINES BLOG VERSUS THE NICEGUIDELINES

These are NOT the NICEGuidelines. This is "The NICEGUIDELINES BLOG." What are the differences:

The NICE Guidelines are biased publications based on the GOBSART (Good Old Boys Sitting Around a Table) approach.

This Blog however is not only evidence based but also uses critical reading to judge papers and articles. I also use common sense and listen to others. And finally I read both psychiatric and medical evidence and opinions from around the world to come to a conclusion.

I’m not sponsored by anybody or paid by whatever company as seems to be the norm with many psycho people who publish the same article almost on a weekly base.

So if you value an opinion, formed as a result of participating in many ME activities, for example being bed bound for years, you have come to the right BLOG. All these activities have allowed me to form an opinion as a Doctor and as a Patient. And that is important as the voice of the latter is discarded by many including NICE.

If you don’t read this blog, you will miss out on “accredited” medical education. If you do read it, you may actually become a doctor who doesn’t stop thinking or forgets to ask critical questions. Many good things, including satisfied patients are at your command.

So, if you arrived here for the straightforward GOBSART approach, I will disappoint you. If you are interested in forming your own opinion about ME, and other interesting things, read on!

About Dr. Speedy.

I am a Family Physician or GP as it is called in Australia or the UK. I am also an ME patient unfortunately. Bedbound that is. So at the moment I’m in private practice so to speak. I’ve got only one patient, ME, or is it me?

I graduated as a doctor a long time ago, and I am the founder and editor of The NICEGUIDELINES BLOG, an internet based ME BLOG that is devoted to critical reading and cheering you or ME up.

I have the following conflict of interest: I would like to get better and see that the wasting of public money on CBT (talk therapy for a neurological disease, really helpful) and other silly therapies for ME stops, and will be used in better ways.

My goal has always been to help, and if possible, cure patients. With this disease you will soon find out that many psychiatrists and psychologists are only in it to make money and get their name in the spotlight. And what happens to and with the patients is irrelevant.

I stand to benefit both mentally, physically and also financially if this silliness would stop, and I would get my health back, and I can go back to work and have a normal life again. Please evaluate my postings with this in mind! And remember, there are also (lots of) psychiatrists and psychologists who haven’t switched their brain off.